Garment hangers have been around for many years. Garment hangers have evolved from a basic wire hanger, which has a simple loop of wire in a flattened triangle shape that continues into a hook at the top, to more complex designs having locking clamping arms. The clamping arm garment hangers were designed to securely hold the garment between the clamping arm members once the clamping arms are closed and locked together.
While most clamping arm garment hangers do work, they have several drawbacks. First, most clamping arm garment hangers require both hands to lock and unlock the clamping arms. This makes it difficult to secure and remove the garment from the clamping arm garment hanger. Previous clamping arm garment hangers have been of a complicated nature and were expensive to fabricate. These clamping arm garment hangers required a special hanger construction to facilitate operation of the closing mechanism; utilization of a spring biasing system of one sort or another; and the application of a relatively complex closing mechanism.
Prior clamping arm garment hangers used closing mechanisms that employed a cam or over-center lever arrangement for closure. Devices of this type deteriorate with wear to the point that after continued use the closing mechanism would no longer lock and the clamping members were no longer able to secure the garment.
Therefore, a need exists to provide a clamping arm garment hanger that is able to overcome the above problems. The clamping arm garment hanger would be capable of single hand operation and would have a simplified wear-resistant locking mechanism.